Rangarajan Krishnan
Class of 2008
 

Tell us a little about your family background/ history. How has it influenced you?
I am the youngest of the three siblings in my family. My father is a retired bank officer and my mother a home maker. I come from a classic god-fearing, conservative, big, middle-class family. These adjectives have largely shaped my perspectives and my personality and have both enabled and constrained me in my achievements. Early on in my life, I had realized that I bear my own cross and have taken and enjoyed complete ownership of my decisions and actions.

Briefly describe your personal and professional achievements (including recent awards/ special projects).
I am a finance professional with the well-rounded experience of having been a lender, investor and now an advisor to corporates. I have worked in the best of the organizations - HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered and International Finance Corporation. About five years back, I decided to switch over to a boutique corporate finance advisory firm - Spark Capital (I was confident that this would be the closest.I would ever get to entrepreneurship). I’m glad that I made this switch and it has been part of a terrific journey. We have grown to a team of 60 today and I head three key sub-verticals within the firm's corporate finance practice - Financial Services, Consumer and Healthcare. On the personal front I strongly believe "Education" is the big game changer in a person's life and I do my bit to ensure that underprivileged, orphaned or needy do not miss out this chance in their lives.

Tell us about your profile prior to attending ISB and recap your professional life after ISB, including your career progression.
Prior to ISB I had done my first MBA from Sri Sathya Sai Institute and had about 5 years of commercial banking experience. Doing a second MBA at ISB was a special and a bold choice that I had made. After ISB, I worked with the World Bank group for two years in the Infrastructure investment team and then joined Spark Capital in 2010. At Spark, I have enjoyed a fast track progression and a great learning experience.
 
How do you think your time at ISB has contributed to your career and personal growth?
ISB has really helped me on two counts. First, it challenged me, allowed me to calibrate and assess myself and then redraw my boundaries. Everything was challenged first - right from my sleeping habits (I never knew anything beyond 11 PM earlier...) to Academic credentials to personality traits to pressure response. Spending time and interacting with the best of the best, allowed me to study my own responses and calibrate/ cement them as needed. Finally, it allowed me to redraw afresh these boundaries. In many cases, it gets extended. In some aspects the boundaries contract. But the best thing is that, it allowed me to be aware of the process.
Second, the quiet confidence that the system has built in me. An ability to appreciate complexities and yet not get bogged by the same. The structured and disciplined way of approaching problems. These are traits that have stayed with me from my ISB experience.

What do you enjoy most about your current career position?
I work with people who have built businesses and with people who have crashed them; with people whose egos and achievements are disproportionate (at both ends); with people for whom money is the center point of decision making and with people for whom it is beyond the circumference of influence. But the common denominator in most of them is the passion to chase their dreams and a commitment to their crafts. Just being around and being a part of their decision making process gives me great life lessons. Not everything necessarily needs to be to my taste, but neither is McDonald's menu...

Briefly describe a typical day at work, in a way that illuminates the kind of challenges and opportunities your role involves.
In some sense, my role is that of Robin Hood's. Not in a moral sense, but in an economic sense. I work with and facilitate flow of capital from its providers to its seekers. A typical day would hence revolve around these fantasies and challenges. In operational terms it translates into building a knowledge base on industries that I am dealing with, management of the investment process (with right interventions on accounting, legal, technical and commercial aspects) and scoping out/ ideating on interesting opportunities. Depending on the number of deals and their stages in the process, the level and intensity of action varies on these parameters.

What is the next new thing in the industry or vertical you are working in? Are there any trends that you can identify?
I observe that my industry i.e. Investment Banking by design, follows a "binary fission" cellular growth model. Once an organization grows and reaches a certain size, there is a tearing urge for individuals in the organization to branch out on their own and start another organization. While doing so, their set of relationships walks away with them. The result is over a period of time, there is mushrooming of several smaller investment banks, each with their own limited circle of influences. This has both increased the intensity of competition and at several levels decreased the quality of competition. It’s a very interesting time now where it is both difficult to stand out and easy to be spotted. I firmly believe that the power of knowledge and ideas and commitment to one's delivery standards are going to be key differentiators that will define success in our industry.

What was the main highlight or most memorable aspect of your programme at the ISB?
ISB to me was a memorable experience throughout. But if I have to pick just one incident from that, it would be the day I first walked into the campus. I had never been to the campus before and it was love at first sight. The day to me was a leaf out of the Harry Potter movie when new students walk into Hogwarts mesmerized by its beauty and vastness... you meet pure bloods and muggles alike..
The sorting hat assigns your sections... and in the evening, Albus Dumbledore opens up the dinner.

If you could offer a word of advice to the current class at ISB, what would it be?
Someone once said "Work is love made visible. When work is its own reward it makes other rewards possible". If this attitude is made the cornerstone of your time at ISB, you would make the most of out of it. There is so much to take out of your experience at ISB that do not waste it by building it around ranks, placements, peer pressures and RoIs. This is much too important and lasting to be wasted around statistical metrics.

How do you feel you can contribute to ISB?
I actively participate in Shadow an Alum and Mentorship initiatives. I’ve recruited a couple of ISB students in my organization. Happy to be part of any boot camps/ knowledge sessions around my domain.